Katherine A. Magnuson, Jane Waldfogel

Our supplier does not have stock of this product at present, but we can create a special order for you. Alternatively, if you
add it to your wishlist we will send you an email message should it become available
from stock.
Special orders from this supplier are
normally fulfilled within 31 - 41 working days.
Please note:

Special order items cannot be combined on an order with other items.

Special orders can sometimes take significantly longer than this estimate and sometimes our suppliers may be unable to fill a special order.

We cannot accept returns of special order titles.

If we haven't been able to get the product for you within about 3 months, we will automatically
cancel the order and fully refund any payments that you have made.

Addressing the disparity in test scores between black and white
children remains one of the greatest social challenges of our time.
Between the 1960s and 1980s, tremendous strides were made in
closing the achievement gap, but that remarkable progress halted
abruptly in the mid 1980s, and stagnated throughout the 1990s. How
can we understand these shifting trends and their relation to
escalating economic inequality? In Steady Gains and Stalled
Progress, interdisciplinary experts present a groundbreaking
analysis of the multifaceted reasons behind the test score gap and
the policies that hold the greatest promise for renewed progress in
the future. Steady Gains and Stalled Progress shows that while
income inequality does not directly lead to racial differences in
test scores, it creates and exacerbates disparities in schools,
families, and communities which do affect test scores. Jens Ludwig
and Jacob Vigdor demonstrate that the period of greatest progress
in closing the gap coincided with the historic push for school
desegregation in the 1960s and 1970s. Stagnation came after efforts
to integrate schools slowed down. Today, the test score gap is
nearly 50 percent larger in states with the highest levels of
school segregation. Katherine Magnuson, Dan Rosenbaum, and Jane
Waldfogel show how parents level of education affects children s
academic performance: as educational attainment for black parents
increased in the 1970s and 1980s, the gap in children s test scores
narrowed. Sean Corcoran and William Evans present evidence that
teachers of black students have less experience and are less
satisfied in their careers than teachers of white students. David
Grissmer and Elizabeth Eiseman find that the effects of economic
deprivation on cognitive and emotional development in early
childhood lead to a racial divide in school readiness on the very
first day of kindergarten. Looking ahead, Helen Ladd stresses that
the task of narrowing the divide is not one that can or should be
left to schools alone. Progress will resume only when policymakers
address the larger social and economic forces behind the problem.
Ronald Ferguson masterfully interweaves the volume s chief findings
to highlight the fact that the achievement gap is the cumulative
effect of many different processes operating in different contexts.
The gap in black and white test scores is one of the most salient
features of racial inequality today. Steady Gains and Stalled
Progress provides the detailed information and powerful insight we
need to understand a complicated past and design a better future."